Pregnancy III
by JanSuch
Summary: Helen is getting closer to her due date, but daily life at the Sanctuary goes on. Short update, continuation from previous stories.


Big Guy hummed as he dusted. He was the only person who knew the sex of Helen's unborn child, and he'd been sworn to secrecy. He'd done the ultrasounds to be sure everything was proceeding properly with the development of the fetus, but Helen had insisted she didn't want to know ahead of time whether it was a boy or a girl. And Tesla hadn't asked.

At least the vampire had gotten Helen to stop running around on missions earlier than last time. When Helen had been pregnant with Ashley, Big Guy had feared she would deliver in the middle of a firefight, and in fact had given birth only three weeks after she'd led the mission to capture a stramilha . . . stimalarhi . . . really big fanged rabbit sort of Abnormal.

Anyway, all was right with his world. Helen was safe and doing the administrative work she often handed over to Will when she led missions, and she was much faster at it so there was never a crisis getting the reports in the mail. The underground Sanctuary didn't get dusty as quickly as the one on the surface; even the windows stayed cleaner longer without the air pollution from the city. And people tracked in a lot less dirt using the gates rather than the door, so he didn't need to spend as much time cleaning.

Tesla had gotten over his "King" problem, so no more bowing, and the vampire was still using coasters for his wine glasses and disposing of his empties in recycling. Biggie would have had a lot of free time except for the speedy redecorating of Helen's new apartment. He was still finding the occasional flake of pale yellow paint from the nursery in his thick hair. But that was finished as of yesterday, so after catching up on his dusting he would have the evening free to watch his DVDs of "reality" preternatural shows. He just loved the ones about Bigfoot; he got quite a few laughs watching humans blunder around in the woods giving the audience misinformation and pretending there was one of his people just around the next group of trees. In a couple of days they'd be moving furniture, so he wanted to take advantage of whatever free time he had now.

Big Guy finished his chore and headed for his room, passing Henry and Tesla in the hall. They were rigged out in mission gear so Biggie stopped them; very easy to do, he could take up most of the hall when he wanted to.

"Where are you going?" he asked Henry, ignoring Nikola.

"Got word there's Taminsail trafficking going on Rio; apparently one of the logging operations in the Brazilian rainforest has taken up a side business" Henry explained.

"You want help?" Big Guy asked. He could see Tesla starting to get impatient at the delay but continued to ignore him.

"Nah, we got it. They're just locals and we have Sanctuary personnel standing by to get the Tams back where they belong."

Big Guy finally acknowledged the vampire but continued to address only Henry. "And what's he going to do?" he asked, jerking his thumb toward Tesla.

Nikola inserted himself in front of Biggie and answered "I'm going to scare their pants off so we don't have to shoot them very much. Excuse us." He pulled Henry along past the big Sasquatch.

Biggie just grunted after them and chuckled a little to himself. The vampire was leading missions in Helen's place, not at all a normal activity for him and one he found annoying and a waste of his time. But he was doing it so Helen would feel better about not going herself, and Big Guy appreciated that; he just wasn't going to say so to Tesla.

But it was good for Biggie to know that Tesla would be out of the Sanctuary for a while so he could be sure to check on Helen more often. He had to admit that the vampire had been properly solicitous of Helen the last few months, but as he went on more missions and was around less, someone needed to take up the slack. It was still a month shy of Helen's due date, but it didn't hurt to keep an eye on her and sometimes she could use a little help, although she wasn't likely to admit it.

He changed direction and headed for Helen's office and walked in through the open door. She was working on her computer but already had the daily reports in her outbox waiting for him.

She looked up and smiled at him as he came in. Biggie asked "Need anything?" as he picked up the reports; might as well get them in the mail early as long as they were ready.

Helen shook her head. "No, thanks."

"Hmm. You picked out names for the baby yet?"

"Nikola and I have discussed it" Helen said carefully.

"Uh huh" Biggie replied knowingly.

Helen sighed. "Yes, we're having a little trouble agreeing; the problem is our family names. I pointed out that since we're not married, legally the child should have my name. Then Nikola reminded me we're not in any country, there aren't any laws except those we make up ourselves."

"Hyphenate?"

"The one thing we agree on is that we both hate hyphenated names. They show the parents can't agree, and they're not good for the long term and we really do need to think long term."

"Why aren't they good for long term?"

"What happens when someone with a hyphenated name marries someone else with a hyphenated name? Do they give the children all four names of their grandparents? Then in the next generation does it become eight names and so on?"

"Ah. Well I'm sure you'll work it out."

"We will- eventually."

"Well if you need anything while Tesla's away, just call me."

"Thank you old friend, I'll do that. But for now . . ."

"We both have work to do." Biggie left and took the mail to his own office where he inserted pages into envelopes, applied postage, addresses and return addresses as needed. He went to the gate; he had his own controller now. The Sanctuary gate house in Old City was just an old apartment building so Biggie could put up the hood on his sweatshirt, keep his head down, and put the outgoing mail in the box for the postman to pick up without going outside or generally even be seen.

When he gated back, he almost ran into Henry and Tesla who had just returned and were leaving the gate room. When they turned to see who had come through the gate behind them he commented "That was fast."

Nikola grinned at him and said "I made three of them pee their pants."

"And we only had to shoot one" Henry added.

Biggie just nodded; better than shooting four of them he supposed. "Taminsails safe?"

Tesla had already walked away but Henry answered "Yep, and on their way back to the rainforest, but not near where the logging is happening."

The two of them walked together in companionable silence. Big Guy said "They're having trouble deciding on names now."

"Not a surprise. Electricman should just let the Doc do the naming. She named me and Ashley; she's good at it."

Biggie just grunted and nodded agreement. They parted so Henry could stow his mission gear properly and Big Guy went on to his quarters.

Nikola strode jauntily down the corridor to Helen's office where he shed his gear all over her furniture and planted a hip on her desk. "Give any more thought to my suggestion?"

Helen eyed his stuff strewn around her nice neat office distastefully. "You are going to pick those up, aren't you?"

"Let the hairball do it, his cleaning job is half of what it was before we moved down here and he's destroying whatever passes for his mind with rotgut TV."

"Biggie's other duties take more time now and what he does in his spare time is none of your business. You _will_ clean that up, Nikola."

"Fine, I'll take it with me when I go. You didn't answer my question."

"I don't think the boys being named Tesla and the girls being named Magnus is a good idea; we don't know how many children we'll end up having or their sexes, and boys and girls often don't get along all that well without dividing them by name. How did your mission go?"

"Fine, the little beasts are being lovingly taken to a new home deep in the rainforest. I suppose we could just wait and see what Baby Number One looks like and then decide on a name. I mean if it looks like me we name it after me and if it looks like you we name it after you."

"She'll likely look like both of us."

Nikola sighed, stood up and came around the desk to kiss Helen who cooperated fully. Then he started to walk out of the room saying "I need to clean up and change into something more comfortable." He was in black coveralls, and Helen knew that to him a three-piece suit was lounge wear.

But Helen realized he was still trying to get out of putting away his mission gear himself and called sharply "Nikola! Don't forget your gear."

The vampire grumbled something under his breath, reversed course, picked up his discarded items and left. But he had only just reached his suite when the perimeter alarm went off. Nikola dumped his gear on the floor and raced back to Helen's office. She'd promised not to go on missions, but there had been no promises about answering alarms.

She was already gone when he got there; he hesitated just long enough to find on her computer that the west tunnel alarm had signaled a breach in security before racing for the building exit nearest the danger point. He caught up with her going out the door.

"Helen! Stop, let William take care of it."

Helen stopped, but only because he had reached her and taken hold of her arm. "We could be under attack!" she exclaimed as she futilely tried to free herself.

"Let William handle it. You've trained him and Henry will respond too as Head of Security."

"I know but . . ."

"I'll go along and make sure the kids are safe. Please, go back to your office, you can monitor from there. Please?"

Helen sighed and looked down at her belly. "All right. It will probably all be over by the time I get there anyway."

Nikola gave her a quick "Thank you" and she headed back down the hall while he went outside and ran toward the west tunnel. But he didn't get far when the problem soared into the main cavern on huge wings. Whatever it was, it was bigger than a condor and looked faintly prehistoric with feathers, long neck, a narrow pointed bill that sported teeth, and a long flexible downy tail that it shifted for balance as it flew.

The vampire stopped running and watched it for a moment. It was definitely a bird, so not a dragon although he could see that it could have been the basis of dragon legends, or stories about the fabled roc. It might even be a roc, he'd never seen one. Sanctuary personnel were running after it, coming back into the main cavern. Will was shouting instructions to get tape and a net, and Henry had a stunner.

They both ran up to where he was standing and looked to him for instructions. Nikola just folded his arms and asked "So what's the plan?"

Henry replied "Well we can't shoot it while it's flying, it'll crash."

Will added "We need to get it on the ground and try to capture it, and only stun it if we have to. It's big, but it's still sort of a bird and stunning it could kill it so that's the last resort."

"And how do you plan to get it on the ground William?" Nikola asked in his best professorial tone.

"I don't know; maybe we could lure it with food, but I don't know what it eats." At that point some of Henry's people showed up with the tape and bird net guns that would fire a large net over an area quickly as well as a couple of large nets. But the big roc or whatever it was just kept circling the cavern lazily.

But as the creature glided over the main building Nikola's pigeon flock suddenly took off, frightened by what they perceived as a predator. The large bird changed course after them.

"No!" Nikola yelled and vamped. He started following on the ground, but the birds were all moving too fast and were too high for him to do anything. Then the roc creature dived on the flock, which changed direction but not quite fast enough.

There was an impact, feathers flew, and the creature followed two falling pigeons, one of them fluttering with damaged feathers, the other just falling. Nikola reached the place where the pigeons landed at the same time they did. The big bird tried to veer off when it saw him, but too late. Nikola leapt up at it and grabbed it, his weight bringing both of them down the eight or ten feet to the ground.

The vampire held it down for the few seconds, holding the beak and one wing and staying out of the way of the claws; it only took the others a few seconds to reach him. He backed off as the net was put over the creature and others held it while its bill was taped shut. Nikola abandoned the knot of people wrapping up the big bird and went to find his pigeons.

One was on its feet and looking around alertly; it took off as he approached and fluttered into a nearby tree. Nikola let it be; he could provide food down here for it until it fully recovered. Where was the other one?

He found it in the grass. It lay still on its side, and he knelt down next to it and devamped. Nikola gently picked it up and cradled the bird, but he knew it was dead.

Henry came up behind Tesla and said "Hey we've got it; want to take a close look? What are you . . . oh" he finished as he saw what Nikola had in his hands. The vampire hadn't acknowledged Henry's presence at all, his head was bent over the pigeon and he was stroking the body. One look at his face and the HAP backed off and went back to the roc.

Helen had seen it all from her office window. She watched Nikola stand up with his dead bird and walk quickly around the end of the building out of sight. She called Will and told him to bring the roc to an Abnormal examining room so she could look at it and make sure it was all right before it was removed and released. She had seen this type of creature flying among the ruins of Praxis but she hadn't had the opportunity to examine one before and she also wanted to gather information about the species. And right now Nikola was best left alone to recover.

She found the roc to be uninjured although a bit stressed; it had lost a few feathers being wrestled into submission, but nothing it couldn't manage without. She tranquilized it and took several hours to do the examination and gather data. Helen had the sleeping creature put in a big box with air holes for transport to the Praxis cave so after it woke it would be released back with its own kind. Then she went to find Nikola.

He wasn't on the roof with his remaining birds, but she could see he'd fed them and likely checked them all for injuries. Nor was he in his suite, the library, the wine cellar, his office or his lab.

Finally she went outside, around the corner of the building where she had seen him go. There she found a small oval of sod that was a little higher than the ground around it at the base of a tree and Nikola sitting on the ground next to it. He'd changed into a suit and was getting grass stains on it but didn't seem to care.

In her condition she couldn't really sit down next to him; she wouldn't be able to get up. But she knew he knew she was there, so she just put her hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Nikola."

He just nodded. Helen continued "Did it have a name, was this one special to you?"

His voice was rough when he answered "No, it was just one of the flock; completely ordinary and nearly indistinguishable from many of the others."

"And yet . . ."

"It was loved." He put his hand on hers. "Just like so many people are no more than an anonymous face in the crowd, but have family and friends who care about them. Everyone should have someone who loves them; everyone counts Helen, even just an ordinary pigeon."

She bent over and kissed his cheek. "It's one of the reasons I love you Nikola, you do care in spite of how deeply you manage to bury it and cover it in sarcasm and flippancy."

Nikola sighed and got up and faced her. "Just don't tell the kids, okay?"

She smiled at him and said "Of course not. What in the world would you do if everyone started to like you?"

He put his arm around her shoulders and she put hers around his waist and they started to walk back. "I don't know; something really drastic like actually taking over the world."

"Well not until after the baby is born, right?"

"Right."

A/N: Thank you :Kotah, epichlexi, and DelusionNyssa for reviews on Pregnancy II.


End file.
